The Hills Are Alive, Austria

I'm trying to think of a more perfectly blissful half hour on our trip and I'm having trouble topping our time in the verdant green hills where Maria sang "the hills are alive" in the classic scene of Sound of Music.  We had trouble finding the right spot (and this is actually not even exactly it but close enough).  Eventually we just pulled off to the side of the road, all jumped out and danced and frolicked (it's funny to use that word seriously) and had the best time.  To be cliche, we really did all feel extra alive.  Something about that fresh air, the mist, the hills above and below, the colors, and the damp, flower speckled grass.  Pure happiness.

Sunset in the Inner Circle of Stonehenge

I think for the whole rest of my life this will remain a special evening. We somehow found the holy grail of family adventures.  Everything conspired for us.  It felt so good, we were so grateful.

We had an ok time at Stonehenge before.  Not spectacular, but we were content to check it off our list.  Our friends had brought their children to a special access tour of the inner circle during the winter and though the special access was incredible, the screaming and tears of the freezing morning was not a happy memory for them.  So they organized another special access tour for their family, this time during spring sunset with friends with kids.  We were offered a place first but after a lot of deliberation we passed.  It wasn't good timing with other things that were going on.  We told ourselves that we had already been and we knew from the beginning we have time and resources to do many wonderful things once but not twice.  I regretted that decision but let it go (as much as I ever do any of my regrets, which is to say I lost sleep over it).  Then a few weeks before the day my friend texted and said one of the families with three children had to drop out and did we want the spot?  Only 30 people are allowed in for the special access hour, so she needed to keep numbers exact--lucky us!  I hung on to that spot like crazy and was it worth it or what?  So, so worth it.

There were twenty children under the age of eight running around Stonehenge.  The adults began with some anxiety because it is strictly forbidden to touch the stones.  However, the children were very good about being careful around the stones and played mostly in the grassy lawn around the circle.  They played tag and hide and seek, picked flowers and got piggy-back rides from their daddies.  The sounds of happiness and joy in being alive echoed through the ancient stones.  It was more beautiful than I can say in words.

Even the guards enjoyed themselves.  Luckily they were pretty chill in the first place, it seemed.  They rarely have any children come to these after hours, by permission only tours.  They said they've seen some interesting ceremonies and things, but mostly people just stand around and quietly look at the stones.  The children brought the place to life again.  (I imagine, in my silly imagination, that this  poor old place has felt lonely and dried up for a long time.  The children truly were a breath of fresh air.)

I spent a few minutes of our hour taking pictures of my important people and a few more getting some shots you can only get in the space (no special lens necessary) because I knew I would want them later.  For the most part, though, this was a time and place I was able to be mainly present and enjoy the being, rather than scrambling and stressing about photo shooting.  I watched other people (several professional photographers in the bunch) getting perfect angles and working their film into art.  I enjoyed watching but was glad most of my memories are of the sun coming through the stones, seeing the lichen growing naturally on them, feeling the height of the massive monument like you can't from far away, sensing the centeredness of the place, hearing the children laugh and play but not really seeing them (the older ones anyway) as they had the most epic playdate ever.

Oh yes, this evening made Stonehenge more than just a bucket list check off for our family.  So grateful.

After the Photo Break

A month was too long.  I'm thinking a week would have been just fine to break me of some of my over zealous photo habits.  A month was just starving.  It didn't make the itch to take pictures go away, it just made it worse.  A real addiction, this one.

I was pretty good.  I allowed myself some exceptions.  I took some on the Saturday Collin was able to go ice skating with the kids.  I took some for record keeping (I snap a picture of our home school daily list/journal every week) and I took a video of the children performing a puppet show a few days ago because Davy asked and asked so nicely.  I stepped way back on checking Instagram, though I did continue to peek in a couple of times a day.  It was far less than the every hour on the hour I'd been guilty of before.  I think I'll continue to curb my Instagram appetite a little more.  However, I'm ready for making some memories visual again!

Here are a few memories I have in my own mind from the last month that are worth a sentence or two describing.

Davy and me looking up at the tangled bare tree branches against a pale blue sky and deciding if they look more like lace or spider's webs.

Davy and Eddy at the doctor office with a big mural of London in the background.  Davy under the height measuring stick and Eddy on the scale, one looking up one looking down.

Eliza with a lollipop in her mouth and big wet crocodile tears trapped in her lashes after four jabs (shots) at the doctor.

The stampede for the door on a Friday night when Daddy is home in time to see the children before bed.

Eddy kneeling on the kitchen counter to help measure and pour making corn muffins.

The "ghost museum" the boys made one cold afternoon.  They drew spooky pictures and hung them above Eddy's bed in a gallery wall.  (Actually, I may still take a picture of this, as it's still up!)

The little fairy house we made in our garden one pleasant afternoon.  I started the idea, but then the kids took it and ran with it, dashing all over the yard gathering items to make the perfect place for a little elf or fairy to live in.  (As a matter of fact, I think I'll be making a movie of this because we totally want to do it again!)

The kids reading together and Davy asking me, "Mom, aren't you going to take a picture of us?  You ALWAYS take a picture of us when we're reading."  It's true, I do!  Not that time, I didn't, but you better believe I will next time!

Childhood Dreams

Warning:  It's a long one, so it's mainly for us and grandmas. :)

I've put together a compilation video of all the random snippets and clips I've gotten for the past few years and recently. I had different plans for some of them, with really upbeat music for all the energy of childhood they capture.  But then surprisingly this song just happened to create the feeling I've been feeling about this breakneck-speeding but sublime period of life right now with very young (but growing fast!) children. 

I seriously love this life I've been blessed with.  I don't know how I ever deserved such an incredible family but I'm grateful beyond words.  I have the best job in the world, though I don't always remember it in the dirty, stinky, messy, frustrating, annoying, losing patience moments.  When I see the smiles and the snuggles (especially when all is quiet in the house after bedtime) I feel as though I'm living in the best dream ever. 

On One Rainy Day

As part of our daily "kid jobs" (piano, singing, reading, letters, counting, tying shoe, sewing, telling time, etc.) we've begun memorizing poems.  Since instituting this a couple months ago we've learned several short (very short) poems.  We learn a line a day, practice performing it, perform it to Daddy (and once to the Primary in a talent show that was a complete bust), and pass it off with a great big check mark.  Then we begin a new one!  The other day was a rainy day and I decided it was time to review one of our first poems memorized, appropriately about rain.  So, enjoy!

The Almost Easter Dress and An Overabundance of Bees

Well, I almost made my deadline.  Easter came and went without my baby girl getting a homemade new dress for the holiday.  Ah, well.  In a race it's not about finishing first, but completing at all and well.  At least that's what I tell my boys.  So, I finished the dress anyway, though late.  It was fun to pick up a pattern and a fabric I had stashed since before Eliza was thought of (I think since I was expecting Eddy and before I knew he was a boy, actually).  I knew someday, someday, there would be a baby girl in my life who needed a specially made bee dress (in addition to the dozens of other bee outfits my Eliza Bee has/does/will ever have in her life).

So indulge me a little as I detail the cuteness of it all.  I hope there will be other dresses made in the future, but just in case this is the only one ever made by me for my daughter . . .

It was a good testament to my own mom's sewing skills teaching that I felt confident enough to add my own pizazz to the pattern.  I felt the dress needed a little extra somthin'somthin' so I put in an extra layer for the skirt.  And I was brave enough to do a zipper.  It took me three days of the half-finished dress staring at me to build up enough courage and I'm sure it would not withstand a true seamstress's critique.  All I care about is that it zips!  Up and down.

I really wanted to do one of those fun "where did the baby go?" disappearing pics, but I did not have enough fabric after all.  I'd already used the other bit I got for the back of Eliza's first year baby quilt (Ha-Ha! I'm ahead of the deadline there!  You win some, you lose some.).  So this is the best we could get this time around.

She was such a good trooper, as always, but so done at the end.  Okay, baby, just one more!  Okay, maybe five . . .

I get little giddy grins every time I see that she has just enough fine silky baby hair to clip up.  :D

Pedal Bike

 

Davy's had the balance bike mastered since last year, but since it was winter we were in no hurry to try and move up to a big kid bike.  Since spring has mostly arrived and we're getting outside I knew it was time.  I borrowed the right size pedal bike with no training wheels from a friend (since we are in the not-accumlating-stuff mode) and put a brave face on.  

Davy and I have learned a lot of new things together in our five years and many of those first toe-dips into deep water have been ever so ugly.  Lots of drama, hurt feelings, just not happiness all around.  Figuring out how to ride a tricycle when he was 2 1/2 or 3 was miserable.  He'd just sit on the seat and scream about not knowing how to work the pedals.  If I tried to help him he'd swat at me and scream louder.  I finally just had to look the other way and let him figure it out without anyone looking.  And it took weeks.  Hours in the afternoon for weeks.  Not pretty, right?

And the balance bike in the beginning was the same.  I was smarter by then, had a couple more years of experience to leave Davy to his own devices to figure something out.  I knew to only place a very thought-out bit of advice very rarely and carefully and then not feel at all emotionally attached to it as it would be batted away before fully expressed.

Whew.

Anyway, I girded up my loins and fresh courage took when bringing the boys and their new bikes to the park.  I chose a park far away from home that was more likely to be quite scarce of other kids and moms and where no one would know us if any drama reared its ugly face.  ;)

So imagine my great surprise and relief when after just a few false starts Davy had it down easy!  Most importantly (from my perspective), those false starts were not melt-down material.  He just took a deep breath and re-focused and started again.  He still wanted to not have anyone watching his mistakes, wanting to have it all figured out before he learned.  But so much progress!  I owe an awful lot to maturity, of course, but a big portion to that wonderful wonderful balance bike.  He did already know what to do, so putting balance and pedaling together was just a matter of minutes.  His kind of learning.

I was purposefully not really watching, so by accident caught his first success on my phone camera.  It was windy, hence the background noise.  Especially sorry about the way-too-excited mom voice.  And sorry you miss Davy saying to me, "Mom, I'm so proud of myself!" at the end as the wind whips the words away.  He has every right to be proud of himself, big kid!

Eliza caught on to the happiness of success in her own cute way.  We were all so proud of Davy and his big milestone!

Note on Eddy--the seat on his new (Davy's old) balance bike was set too high and I didn't have the tools there to fix it.  It's the right height now, but it's going to be a while before he figures it out, I think.  He wants to skip right to the big pedal bike!  Poor little brothers and that bothersome catch-up mentality.  Anyway, he'll get it when he's ready.